The bounce house guy in Toledo took my cash and vanished, so we ran a cardboard box maze instead
I had the whole block party planned out for August with a $175 bounce house rental from a company a neighbor swore by, but the guy never showed and his phone went straight to voicemail. Ten minutes before start time I had about 30 kids staring at an empty driveway, so I grabbed every Amazon box from my garage, stacked them into a maze down the sidewalk, and told the older kids to run it. It held up for two hours until the twins in 4B flattened the last wall, and honestly the parents said their kids talked about it way more than the bouncy castle from the year prior. So my hot take is that renting a $175 inflatable is a waste when a free box maze gets the same screams. What is everyone else's backup plan when a vendor bails the morning of?